W. Hollywood to Decide on Forced Condom Giveaway

At the end of a night on the town in West Hollywood, you can reach for a breath mint or a toothpick when you’re about to head home from a bar or club.

And, you might also reach into a large glass bowl and grab a few free condoms.

The condom giveaway is part of an emerging safe-sex, anti-AIDS campaign in the 2-square-mile city that is struggling with what it admits is “a public health emergency” among its large gay population and visitors drawn to its night life.

But business and community leaders are struggling over how best to hand out the latex sheaths used for both birth control and protection against sexually transmitted diseases.

A nonprofit health advocacy group is demanding that every bar and nightspot in town be required to offer city-supplied condoms to anyone who wants them.

City officials are countering that idea by proposing that only certain businesses--those that cater to “high risk” gays--give them away. Officials also are wrestling with whether to make the giveaway voluntary or mandatory.

The two sides are heading toward a showdown Monday.

Leaders of the Hollywood-based AIDS Healthcare Foundation are calling for a citywide vote on their comprehensive distribution plan. They say they intend on Monday to submit petitions signed by 2,200 West Hollywood voters, enough to put the issue on the November ballot.

City Council members say they plan to vote Monday night on their own condom concept, picking from two proposals.

One calls for an ordinance that would require adult businesses, bars, coffeehouses and nightclubs to offer condoms to customers. The other is a voluntary program that would simply ask the businesses to do it.

Both of the alternatives are being criticized as too weak by foundation head Michael Weinstein, whose organization runs a West Hollywood coffeehouse called the WeHo Lounge on Santa Monica Boulevard.

Weinstein’s initiative measure asks that West Hollywood purchase and distribute at least 500,000 condoms, plus safe-sex literature, each year to about 70 businesses that derive more than half of their revenue from alcohol consumed on site.

In contrast, the city’s mandatory proposal calls for the annual distribution of 300,000 condoms at about 30 businesses that officials say are “marketing to the highest risk population” for AIDS.

The city’s nonmandatory alternative was suggested after bar and club owners voluntarily increased condom giveaways five months ago and sat down with leaders of the West Hollywood Chamber of Commerce in hopes of hammering out a compromise.

Weinstein began the petition drive in February, and dropped it three months later after the petitions “created a firestorm of opposition from the bars,” as he put it, and City Council members pledged to draft a condom ordinance and then consider enacting it.

Weinstein resurrected the referendum idea in November after deciding that the city was acting too slowly and that the proposed ordinance and its alternative voluntary program weren’t tough enough.

Weinstein said many young gay men don’t bother using condoms when having sex--perhaps because of a feeling of invincibility or the mistaken belief that AIDS is on the decline because of new treatments.

“Many young people have never seen anyone die of AIDS. People who are infected at a young age usually don’t look ill,” he said.

“Ask the general population of L.A. where the party scene is and they’ll tell you it’s West Hollywood. This is party central. We’re here at ground zero. West Hollywood is where people meet to eat, drink and have sex.”

Because of that, Weinstein says all bars and nightspots in the city--not just those that cater strictly to gays--should have containers of condoms set out right next to the pretzel dishes and bowls of breath mints.

Weinstein acknowledges that West Hollywood has for eight years supplied free condoms to gay businesses as part of its $400,000 a year AIDS health program. And new businesses--including the trendy House of Blues--began offering condoms to customers after the city stepped up its distribution in August.

About 22 bars now stock the free condoms--although their availability varies from place to place.

“I was in Micky’s over the past two Saturday nights and they didn’t have any out,” Weinstein said Wednesday.

Micky’s is a gay nightclub next door to Weinstein’s foundation-sponsored coffeehouse. It is a thorn in Weinstein’s side.

Micky’s bar owner Michael Niemeyer has paid for advertising opposing the referendum and acknowledges that he is one of its main opponents. He says the dispute raises civil liberties issues.

“It’s not the city’s business to get involved in the sexuality of its citizens,” he said. And there’s also a certain lack of civility in the idea of shoving condoms in people’s faces.

“Do you really need to see condoms in a restaurant? Do you as an adult have to have that kind of intrusion when you go out? Having condoms every four feet around you is insulting,” he said.

Niemeyer--who says he helped establish the San Fernando Valley’s first AIDS hospice--said most gay business owners in West Hollywood have a long history of fighting the disease.

His own 10-year-old bar encourages safe sex by distributing about 3,000 city-provided condoms a month to customers, he said.

“Our supply runs out at about the 15th of the month,” Niemeyer said, explaining why Weinstein found them missing.

And that’s another reason why he’s opposed to the mandatory nature of Weinstein’s proposal.

“Why should a place on Sunset that caters to middle-aged women have to have them? Those condoms wouldn’t be used. They should be available where people want them.”

City officials say their proposed ordinance will be the first of its kind in the nation if it is passed Monday night.

But Mayor Pro Tem Jeffrey Prang said Wednesday that he senses council support for the alternative voluntary-distribution plan. Under that plan, officials would monitor compliance by business owners and be prepared to make the rules mandatory if the bars and nightclubs do not make condoms available, he said.

Hillary Selvin, executive director of the West Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, said bar and club owners are prepared to voluntarily cooperate, but will bristle at any ordinance that labels them as catering to “high-risk” gay customers.

“I really wish AIDS Healthcare Foundation would wait to see how the voluntary distribution works,” Selvin said.